Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. (NYSE:BR), a global Fintech leader and Sisense, a leading platform for analytics builders, announced the incorporation of Sisense’s embedded data analytics into Broadridge’s revenue and expense management application. Broadridge’s sell- and buy-side clients will benefit from enhanced data analytics, operational workflow efficiencies and transparency, helping them to gain instant insights into revenue and expense streams and achieve an advanced level of reporting.

Broadridge’s revenue and expense management solution offers a flexible, , rules-based technology application that tracks and calculates asset management, FX, transaction and performance fees across a variety of complex workflows and fee structures, and improves revenue reporting. Asset management, hedge fund, wealth and bank clients utilize Broadridge’s automated processes to achieve more efficient accounting functions, faster invoicing, streamlined expense reconciliation, more accurate billing, improved auditing and better forecasting. 

Broadridge is bolstering its revenue management and billing analytics with embedded Sisense functionality, giving clients greater access to data-driven insights, dashboarding and seamless reporting, without the cost or disruption involved with building or buying a data warehouse. The enhanced dashboards include views of dynamic KPIs with the ability to immediately investigate and act on a range of items, such as revenue comparisons and aging of receivables and payables. The dashboards break free from default templates and are tailored to users’ specific needs.

“Through our work with Sisense, we’re incorporating an exciting layer of analytics and business intelligence that will instantaneously put critical P&L insights into the hands of sell- and buy-side clients,” said Eric Bernstein, Broadridge’s Head of Asset Management Solutions. “This enhancement is one of the latest innovations in our continued strategy to meet the evolving needs of our clients and help them be ready for what’s next.”

“Embedding powerful analytics from Sisense is an ideal way to unlock data insights throughout a business and give customers a competitive advantage,” said Guy Levy-Yurista, PhD, Chief Strategy Officer of Sisense. “By delivering transparency and data-driven insights within Broadridge’s solution, Sisense will help Broadridge’s clients succeed in a marketplace defined by intense cost pressure in combination with regulatory, operating and data complexity.” 

Worldline, European leader in the payments and transactional services industry, announces that it has gained one place in the Sustainalytics ranking and became the 4^th out of the 229 companies assessed in the Software and Services industry. For the second year in a row, Sustainalytics has recognised the company’s leadership in sustainability-related matters by giving an overall ESG score of 78/100.

Sustainalytics is an independent global provider of Environment, Social and governance (ESG) and corporate governance research and ratings to investors. The firm partners with institutional investors who integrate environmental, social and governance information and assessments into their investment decisions. ESG ratings coverage launched with 9,000 companies and has now expanded to cover 11,000 companies

Regarding the environment, Worldline has obtained an impressive top score of 100/100 which demonstrates the company’s leadership in its sector. As a matter of fact, Worldline always increases its efforts to reduce its energy use by switching to decarbonised and renewable energy and became the first company of the payment industry to be carbon neutral in 2019. Worldline has been engaged in a process of continuous improvement since 2016 through its strong environmental policy.

In the governance field, Worldline has been ranked with a score of 79/100 by Sustainalytics, proven by the company’s strong policies on bribery, anti-corruption and money laundering and by continually promoting ethical behaviours throughout its value chain, supported by its code of ethics and its membership in the UN Global Compact since 2016.

Based on the ranking, Worldline has shown a steady improvement in dealing with social challenges. Worldline’s strong commitment to human rights and human capital development such as retention initiatives and to the promotion of diversity measures have been rated with a score of 64/100, against 63/100 last year.

These excellent scores acknowledge Worldline's ambitious CSR strategy, the effectiveness of the related action plans and reward the company’s long-term engagement and continuous investment in corporate governance, stakeholder orientation, ethics, human development and the environment. In 2019, Worldline continues to demonstrate sustainable progress and improve its CSR performance as part of its TRUST 2020 CSR program.

Sébastien Mandron, Worldline’s Corporate Social Responsibility Officer, stated: "Once again, the Worldline extra-financial assessment by Sustainalytics acknowledges the company’s robust CSR strategy and commitments formalized in its TRUST 2020 program. Also, I am proud that Worldline reached the highest rating for the environmental domain and which became a citizen concern in the

past months.”

National Bank of Canada (NBC), one of Canada’s six systemically important banks, has successfully implemented and is now live on Murex’s MX.3 Risk and Regulatory Suite. NBC is leveraging the full power of the MX.3 platform for capital markets risk management and to meet its regulatory responsibilities, including compliance with Basel 2.5.

The project was sparked by three key factors:

-          An aging legacy system that was no longer able to keep pace with growing risk and regulatory demands;

-          The need to reduce time-to-market for new products in a highly competitive space;

-          The introduction of new regulations, such as FRTB.

NBC selected the MX.3 Risk and Regulatory Suite because of its native integration of front office and risk. Within one platform, the same pricing libraries are used by both traders and risk management teams, delivering accuracy and consistency across the organization. MX.3 is also enabling the bank to simplify the way it meets its regulatory obligations by applying the latest VaR and stress testing methodologies.

Following the implementation, NBC now benefits from incremental scenario generation and the import of historical time series for newly traded instruments, wide risk factor coverage and increased automation of the correction process for trades and market data.

Commenting on the project, Philippe Leduc, Senior Risk Manager at NBC says, “Murex has been a key technology partner for financial markets. We are pleased to have worked closely with their team to streamline our approach to market risk management infrastructures, data, and processes. In the long run, it means we have a flexible solution that allows us to simplify the market risk ecosystem and prepare ourselves for future initiatives.”

Speaking about the recent go-live, Normand Tanguay, Head of Murex Canada adds, “As a result of this project, NBC is in a great position for FRTB compliance. Now that the pending questions have been answered by the regulator, it’s clear that FRTB will have an undeniably large impact on the banking industry and early preparation is key. We are delighted to see the success of this project and look forward to a working closely with NBC on future endeavors”.

ICS Financial Systems to hold One-on-one user experience (UX) and completes a 4-week assessment and training sessions at SOFIBANQUE for Full ICS BANKS Products Optimization

ICSFS uses different methods for post-go live, continuous support, customer satisfaction and knowledge development methodologies, of which conducting intensive assessment and training sessions and one-on-one user experience (UX) to its customers, in order to enhance ICS BANKS user’s know-how and give attention to its customers journey to expand ICS BANKS’ bundle of products.

ICSFS sessions started on 18th August till 18th September, 2019, which was held at SOFIBANQUE’s head offices in Kinshasa, Congo DRC.

The one-on-one UX was provided by ICSFS’ AGM – Senior Banking Consultant; Raja Khoury, trainees were from SOFIBANQUE’s Senior Executives, Area Managers, Regional Branch Managers, to Branch Managers, Head of Departments and Supervisors.

The assessment and training program were delivered on ICS BANKS’ existing and latest products and features, including new ICS BANKS Digital Banking, front and back office branch operations services, Business Process Management (BPM), Notification System, Auto Collection, Remittances, Credit Facility & Risk Management, Lending products, Discounted Bills, Trade Finance operations, Internal Audit and Control Reporting, Account Classifications and Provisioning system, Nostro Reconciliation, ICS BANKS ERP Suite, which included Fixed Assets, Accounts Payable, Budgeting, Inventory, Procurement and Human Resource Management System (HRMS). IFRS 9 reporting feature, in addition to AML interface and Data warehouse - MIS reporting tools were also covered in the program.  

The program services ICSFS’ customers to acquire new clients and retain their customers loyalty by providing a fully automated, innovative and authentic omnichannel customer journey experience.

The trainees were very impressed with the systems’ new features and capabilities, where they stated that this will definitely improve the quality of services provided to customers and will meet the bank’s future plans, objectives and lower cost of operations.

Less than three months after the Klarna took London’s Covent Garden by storm, the team behind the Pay later revolution have opened the doors to the new ‘House of Klarna’ in Manchester. 

Set in the heart of the vibrant Manchester shopping district, the latest innovation by the UK’s best loved payment brand showcases over 26 of the biggest names from the British retail. With a mixture of online and high-street brands including ASOS, Mothercare, Samsung, Oliver Bonas and Beauty Bay showcased over three floors, this is a curated collection for every kind of shopper. 

Full of Instagrammable moments, such as multi-sensory changing rooms and a ball-pit bathtub, the venue is a surprise and delight right from the moment of stepping inside. The event kicked-off with DJ set from Winnie Williams, who performed an electric set to celebrate the start of the 10-day immersive retail experience.

Luke Griffiths, General Manager at Klarna UK commented: “Once again we are delighted to welcome people into the Klarna world, this time opening the doors to our very own House of Klarna. Our latest foray into physical retail has seen us partner with some of our biggest retailers across 9 different rooms – truly showing the diversity of the brands we work with. We hope that the experiential space will inspire and delight shoppers.“ 

The House of Klarna will see each day playing host to something new; from styling sessions and beauty treatments, to yoga workshops and DJ sets.  All events are free of charge, and a full itinerary can be found here, but with limited spaces registration is advised to avoid disappointment. 

• 04.10.2019 -- 02:08 pm

Financial IT speaks with Nick Haslehurst , CFOO, moneycorp about correspondent banking and payments at Sibos 2019

Stratis, an enterprise blockchain technology company, announces the launch of its online hackathon to promote the use of smart contracts. The competition has been set up to create a community of experts to develop projects using Stratis Smart Contracts to streamline business processes.

Contestants from around the world are invited to take part in the Stratis Smart Contracts Hackathon from 1 November to 16 December 2019. The competition is open to individuals and teams from around the world, including those from profit, non-profit, academic and public sector organisations. The total prize fund will be $18,000. Eligible entrants will compete for a first place cash prize of US$10,000, second place prize of US$5,000 and third place prize of US$3,000.

The challenge for contestants is to develop smart contract applications that can have a big impact. They should be useful, easy to use and innovative and capable of being applied across a wide range of industries. These include banking and financial services, international trade and commodities, supply chain, energy, identity, Internet of Things, government, healthcare and medicine, automotive and gaming.

Stratis is a pioneer in the use of blockchain technology to develop smart contracts. It has developed the first smart contracts platform built entirely from the ground up in native C# on Microsoft’s .NET framework, the most popular enterprise programming language on the most widely used enterprise framework. Stratis is also a certified Microsoft partner and, since last year has been an accredited Microsoft Independent Software Vendor (ISV) listed on the Azure Marketplace, Microsoft’s online store providing applications and services to over 100 million active users.

Blockchain is revolutionising business by utilising Smart Contracts to autonomously execute business logic. The use of blockchain technology allows buyers and sellers to agree contracts without the need for intermediaries or unnecessary delays and costs.

Stratis CEO Chris Trew said: “We are very excited to be hosting this international hackathon and to provide an opportunity to show how Stratis Smart Contracts can unlock the potential of blockchain and transform the way industries work.

“We want to grow our ecosystem of developers. C# is one of the most popular programming languages in the world and at the Stratis hackathon, developers will be able to programme smart contracts in their familiar C# language. By working together, we can harness the combined expertise of this community of experts and push the boundaries of what is possible using blockchain.”

The judges will be asking: does the tool provide a useful function, is it easy and engaging to use, is it doing something innovative, how well does the product function? Submissions can cover any kind of software application, such as the web, cloud, personal computer, mobile device or console, but they must use Stratis Smart Contracts in C#.

The hackathon will be hosted on the established Devpost platform, allowing Stratis to leverage their existing user-base of talented blockchain developers. More information including the terms and conditions, will be released on 1 November 2019 when the Devpost event is live.

Danny Scott, CEO of CoinCorner, comments on Mark Cuban’s remarks that Bitcoin is “too complicated”:

“For Mark Cuban to say that Bitcoin is too "complicated" is naive and short sighted. Technology is complicated in general and this isn't specific to Bitcoin - you only have to think about the internet and how complicated that seemed in the '90s. Using your dial-up modem to attempt to connect to your ISP was just 1 piece of the experience back in the '90s, but these days most people's phones are connected 24/7 and they don't even have to do anything, it just works. This hasn't happened overnight and behind the scenes it hasn't become any simpler. What has happened is that user experience has become better, with companies having competed to make its use cases as simple as possible. Netflix vs Blockbuster is a good example of what the internet has done for user experience, but certainly this didn't happen overnight.

At CoinCorner we spend a great amount time trying to educate people and create products that are as simple as possible. This will evolve over time as we find what works best for people and Bitcoin's use cases. Later this year we'll actually be launching new educational products which we believe will help the general public to easily learn about Bitcoin and see it as something more than a store of wealth.

Mark shouldn't be disregarding something because it's complicated behind the scenes. We appreciate that the user experience part of Bitcoin isn't quite ready for mainstream adoption, but this is something that Bitcoin companies like ourselves are working on.”